XXIII
THE EFFECT OF A PHOTOGRAPH
Laurence Pinckney was a hopeless sportsman. When he realised this forhimself he laid down his gun, and presently took up with Miss Bristo'scamera as a weapon better suited to him.
Alice had made no use of the apparatus for weeks and weeks; it was sentdown with other luggage without her knowledge, and she never thought ofunpacking it until Mr. Pinckney pleaded for instruction; when--perhapsbecause Alice felt that without an occupation this visitor would be onher hands all day--he did not plead in vain. He did not, however,require many lessons. He knew something about it already, having giventhe subject some attention (in the reading room of the British Museum)before writing one of his rollicking articles. Nor were the lessons shedid give him much of a nuisance to Alice, for when he forgot to talkabout his work, and refrained from coruscation, there was no moresensible and polite companion than Laurence Pinckney.
When, therefore, he set out on that Friday's ramble, which produced onereally good negative, and a number of quaint little Arcadianobservations jotted down in his notebook, it was with the entirephotographic impedimenta slung about his person, and some idea in hishead of an article on "The North Yorkshire Dales," to be illustrated bythe writer's own photographs.
His destination was a certain ancient abbey, set in gorgeous scenery,eight long miles from Gateby. But long before he got there a hollow ofthe plain country road tempted him, and he fell.
It was quite an ordinary bit of road; a tall hazel-hedge, and a pathwayhigh above the road on the left; on the right, a fence with trees beyondit, one of them, an oak of perfect form, that stood in the foreground,being of far greater size than most of the trees in this district, andin strong contrast to its neighbours. That was really all. It neverwould have been picturesque, nor have taken our artist's fancy, but forthe sunlight on the wet road and the fleecy pallor of the sky where itmet the sharp line of distant dark blue hills far away over thehazel-hedge, to the left. But the sunlight was the thing. It came, asthough expressly ordered, from, so to say, the left wing. It restedlightly on the hedge-tops. It fell in a million golden sparks on theshivering leaves of the old oak. But it cleared the deep-cut road at abound, leaving it dark. Only a long way further on, where the bend tothe right began, did his majesty deign to step down upon the road; andjust there, because everything was wet from last night's rain, it was aroad of silver.
No sooner, however, was the picture focussed than the sun, which made itwhat it was, disappeared behind a cloud--a favourite and mischievousdodge of his for the mortification of the amateur photographer.
Now, while Pinckney waited for the sun to come out again, which he sawwas going to happen immediately, and while he held in his fingers thepneumatic ball connected with the instantaneous shutter, two figuresappeared at the bend of the road that had been silver track a momentbefore. They were a man and a woman, trudging along with the width ofthe road between them. Pinckney watched them with painful interest. Ifthe cloud cleared the sun at that moment they would be horribly in theway, for worse clouds were following on the heels of this one, and theopportunity must be seized. There was nothing, of course, to prevent histaking the tramps as they walked--no, it would spoil the picture. Stay,though; it would add human interest. But the cloud did not pass sorapidly after all, and the man and woman drew near the camera.
There was something peculiar in the appearance of the man that struckPinckney at once as un-English. This peculiarity was difficult tolocalise. It was not in his clothes, which indeed looked new, but it waspartly in his heavy face, smooth-shaven and suntanned, partly in hisslow, slouching, methodical walk, and very much in his fashion ofcarrying his belongings. Instead of the pudding-like bundle of theEnglish tramp he carried across his shoulders a long, neatly-strappedcylinder, the outer coating of which was a blanket. About the woman, onthe other hand, there was nothing to strike the attention. Pinckney'sfirst glance took in, perhaps, the fact that her black skirt was tornand draggled, and her black bodice in startling contrast to her whiteface; but that could have been all.
Back came the sun, in a hurry, to the hedge-top and the oak-tree, andthe distant curve of the road. Pinckney had decided in favour of thetramps in his picture, but they were come too near. He requested them inhis blandest tones to retrace a few steps. To his immense surprise hewas interrupted by a sullen oath from the man, who at once quickened hissteps forward, motioning to the woman to do the same.
"Thankee for nothing, and be hanged to you! Wait till we pass, willyou?"
If Pinckney had wanted further assurance that the man was a foreignelement, these sentences should have satisfied him; for your honestBritish rustic is not the man to reject the favours of the camera, bethey never so promiscuous and his chance of beholding the result neverso remote.
Pinckney's answer, however, was a prompt pressure of the pneumatic ballin his hand--a snap-shot at short range, the click of which did notescape the sharp ears of the strange-looking, heavily-built old man.
"Have you took us?" asked he fiercely.
"Oh no," replied the photographer, without a blush, "I'm waiting tillyou pass; look sharp, or I'll lose the sun again!"
The man scowled, but said no more. Next moment he passed by on one sideof the camera, and the woman on the other. Pinckney looked swiftly fromone to the other, and marked well the face of each. That of the manrepelled him, as bull-dog jaws upon a thick, short neck and small,cruel-looking glittering eyes would repel most of us, even without thisman's vile expression. The man was tall and broad, but bent, and helooked twenty years older at close quarters than at a distance. Thewoman, on the other hand, was young, but so worn, and pinched, andsoured, and wearied that you had to look closely to find a trace ofyouth. She never raised her eyes from the ground as she walked; butPinckney made sure they were dark eyes, for the well-formed eyebrowswere blue-black, like a raven's feather. Her wrist-bone showedprominently--seeming to be covered by little more than skin--as shecaught together the shawl at her bosom with her left hand; a plain goldhoop was on its third finger.
Pinckney watched the pair out of sight, still walking with the wholeroad between them.
"That brute," muttered Pinckney, "beats his wife!"
And then he exposed another plate from the same position, packed up theapparatus, and went his way.
Some hours later--towards evening, in fact--as Pinckney returned fromhis ruined abbey and came in sight of Gateby, the rain--which hadgathered during the afternoon--came down from the leaden twilit sky inearnest. It rains violently in the dales; and the photographer, hungrythough he was, and more than ready for dinner, saw no reason for gettingwet to the skin when the village was within a stone's-throw, and theshooting-box half-a-mile further on. He burst into the inn for shelter;and honest Robert Rutter conducted him to the private parlour withpeculiar satisfaction, having been intimate with Gateby rain manyyears, and knowing also a thing or two about the appetites of gentlemenfrom the south.
Pinckney, left alone, examined the room. It was gaudily carpeted,uncomfortably furnished, stuffy for want of use and air, and crowdedwith gimcracks. Foxes and birds, in huge cases, were perilously balancedon absurd little tables. The walls were covered with inflamed-lookingprints, the place of honour being occupied by portraits of mine host andhostess unrecognisable. The large square centre-table was laid out inparterres of books never opened. In fact, the parlour was not what youwould have expected of the remote dales. For this very reason, perhaps,that realist Pinckney took particular pains over the description whichwas promptly set down in his note-book. The landlord coming in duringthe writing, moreover, the poor man's words were taken out of his mouthand set down red-hot, and on the phonetic principle, in a parenthesis.
This visit of Rutter's resulted subsequently in a heavy supper of hamand eggs and beer, and a fire in the parlour, before which Pinckneycontentedly smoked, listening to the rain, which was coming down indeedin torrents.
I
t was while this easy-going youth was in the most comfortablepost-prandial condition that the voices in a room, separated from theparlour only by a narrow passage, grew loud enough to be distinctlyaudible in it. Up to this point the conversation had been low andindistinct, occasional laughter alone rising above an undertone; now thelaughter was frequent and hearty. The reasons were that the room inquestion was the tap-room, and the fourth round of beer was alreadyimbibed. One voice--in which the local accents were missed--led thetalk; the rest interjaculated.
Mr. Pinckney pricked up his ears, and of course whipped out theinsatiable note-book. Simultaneously, in the kitchen, connected with thetap-room on the opposite side, the landlord and his wife, with theschoolmaster and his, were bending forward, and solemnly listening tothe stranger's wild stories, with the door ajar. Thus the glib-tonguedpersonage had more listeners, and more sober listeners, than he wasaware of.
"Sharks?" he was saying. "Seen sharks? You bet I have! Why, when I wasor'nary seaman--betwixt Noocastle, Noo South Wales and 'Frisco it was;with coals--we counted twenty-seven of 'em around the ship the morningwe was becalmed in three south. And that afternoon young BillyBunting--the darling of our crew he was--he fell overboard, and wastook. Took, my lads, I say! Nothin' left on'y a patch of red in the bluewater and a whole set of metal buttons when we landed Mister John Sharknext morning." (Sensation.) "And that's gospel. But the next shark as wegot--and we was becalmed three weeks that go--the skipper he strung himup to the spanker-boom, an' shot his blessed eyes out with a revolver;'cause little Billy had been pet of the ship, d'ye see? And then we lethim back into the briny; and a young devil of an apprentice dived overand swam rings round him, 'cause he couldn't see; and it was the bestgame o' blindman's buff ever you seed in your born days." (Merriment.)"What! Have ye never heard tell o' the shark in Corio Bay, an' what hedone? Oh, but I'll spin that yarn."
And spin it he did; though before he had got far the landlady exchangedglances with the schoolmaster's lady, and both good women evincedpremonitory symptoms of sickness, so that the worthy schoolmasterhastily took "his missis" home, and hurried back himself to hear theend.
"A sailor," said Pinckney, listening in the parlour; "and even at thatan admirable liar."
He went out into the passage, and peeped through the chink of the doorinto the tap-room. In the middle of the long and narrow table, on whichthe dominoes for once lay idle, stood one solitary tallow candle, andall around were the shadowy forms of rustics in various attitudes ofbreathless attention--it was a snake-story they were listening to now;and the face of the narrator, thrust forward close to the sputteringwick, was the smooth, heavy, flexible face of the man whom Pinckney hadphotographed unawares on the road.
Pinckney went softly back to the parlour, whistling a low note ofsurprise.
"No wonder I didn't recognise the voice! That voice is put on. The surlygrowl he gave me this morning in his natural tone. He's making up to thenatives; or else the fellow's less of a brute when he's drunk, and ifthat's so, some philanthropist ought to keep him drunk for his naturallife. The terms might be mutual. 'I keep you in drink, in return forwhich you conduct yourself like a Christian,--though an intoxicated one,to me and all men.'"
"Who is that customer?" Pinckney asked of Bob Rutter, as they settled upoutside on the shining flags--shining in the starlight; for the heavyrain had suddenly stopped, and the sky as suddenly cleared, and thestars shone out, and a drip, drip, drip fell upon the ear from allaround, and at each breath the nostril drew in a fragrance sweeter thanflowers.
"He's a sailor," said honest Rutter; "that's all I know; I don't ask noquestions. He says his last voyage was to--Australia, I think they callit--and back."
"I saw he was a sailor," said Pinckney.
"He asked," continued Rutter, "if there was anybody from them partshereabout; and I said not as I knowed on, till I remembered waddycallum,your crack shot, up there, and tould him; and he seemed pleased."
"Has he nobody with him?" asked Pinckney, remembering the wan-facedwoman.
"Yes--a wife or sumthink."
"Where is she?"
"In t'blacksmith's shed."
Rutter pointed to a low shed that might have been a cow-house, but inpoint of fact contained a forge and some broken ploughshares.
"Landlord," said Pinckney, severely, "you ought to turn that lowblackguard out, and not take another farthing of his money until hefinds the woman a fit place to sleep in!"
And with that young Pinckney splashed indignantly out into the darkness,and along the watery road to the shooting-box. There he found everyoneon the point of going to bed. He was obliged, for that night, to keep tohimself the details of his adventures; but, long after the rest of thepremises were in darkness, a ruby-coloured light burned in Mr.Pinckney's room; he had actually the energy to turn his dry-plates intofinished negatives before getting into bed, though he had trampedsixteen miles with accoutrements! Not only that, but he got up early,and had obtained a sun-print of each negative before going over tobreakfast. His impatience came of his newness to photography; it hasprobably been experienced by every beginner in this most fascinating ofcrafts.
These prints he stowed carefully in his pocket, closely buttoning hiscoat to shield them from the light. At breakfast he produced them one byone, and handed them round the table on the strict understanding thateach person should glance at each print for one second only. They werein their raw and perishable state; but a few seconds' exposure to thelight of the room, said the perpetrator, would not affect them. Intruth, no one wished to look at them longer; they were poor productions:the light had got in here, the focus was wrong in that one. But Mr.Pinckney knew their faults, and he produced the last print, and thebest, with the more satisfaction.
"This one," said he, "will astonish you. It's a success, though I sayit. Moreover, it's the one I most wanted to come out well--a couple oftramps taken unawares. This print you must look at only half-a-secondeach."
He handed it to Alice, who pronounced it a triumph--as it was--andglanced curiously at the downcast face of the woman in the foreground.She handed it to the doctor, sitting next her. The doctor put the printin his uncle's hand, at the head of the table. The Colonel's comment wasgood-natured. He held out the print to Miles, who took it carelesslyfrom him, and leant back in his chair.
Now as Miles leant back, the sunlight fell full upon him. It streamedthrough a narrow slit of a window at the end of the room--the bigwindows faced southwest--and its rays just missed the curve oftable-cloth between the Colonel and Miles. But on Miles the rays fell:on his curly light-brown hair, clear dark skin, blond beard andmoustache; and his blue eyes twinkled pleasantly under their touch. Ashe idly raised the print, leaning back in the loose rough jacket thatbecame him so well, the others there had never seen him more handsome,tranquil, and unconcerned.
Miles raised the print with slow indifference, glanced at it, jerked itsuddenly upward, and held it with both hands close before his eyes. Theycould not see his face. But the sunlight fell upon the print, andPinckney cried out an excited protest:
"Look out, I say! Hold it out of the sun, please! Give it here, you'llspoil the print!"
But Miles did not heed, even if he heard. The square of paper wasquivering, though held by two great strong hands. All that they couldsee of Miles's face behind it was the brow: it was deeply scored acrossand across--it was pale as ashes.
A minute passed; then the print was slowly dropped upon the table. Noprint now: only a sheet of glossy reddish-brown paper.
Miles burst into a low, harsh laugh.
"A good likeness!" he said slowly. "But it has vanished, clean gone,and, I fear, through my fault. Forgive me, Pinckney, I didn't understandyou. I thought the thing was finished. I know nothing about suchthings--I'm an ignorant bushman"--with a ghastly smile--"but Ithought--I couldn't help thinking, when it vanished like that--that itwas all a hoax!"
He pushed back his chair, and stalked to the door. No one spoke--no oneknew what to say--one and all, th
ey were mystified. On the thresholdMiles turned, and looked pleadingly towards the Colonel and Alice.
"Pray forgive me, I am covered with shame; but--but it was strangelylike some one--some one long dead," said Miles, hoarsely--and slowly,with the exception of the last four words, which were low and hurried.And with that he went from the room, and cannoned in the passage againstDick Edmonstone, who was late for breakfast.
That day, the champion from Australia shot execrably, which wasinexplicable; and he kept for ever casting sudden glances over hisshoulders, and on all sides of him, which was absurd.
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